


Different Demons, Same Devil

by sadbutchhours



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse, American Horror Story: Coven
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Parental Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode, Self-Harm, also graphic depictions of cuddling, everyone is ok don't worry, graphic depictions of self harm, projecting my mommy issues onto cordelia again, working out my trauma through fic again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 19:28:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27201811
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sadbutchhours/pseuds/sadbutchhours
Summary: A few days after Mallory arrives at Miss Robichaux's, Cordelia finds her on the bathroom floor with blood on her arm and a razor in the sink. But Cordelia's haunted by demons of her own, and they find comfort in each other.
Relationships: Cordelia Foxx | Cordelia Goode & Mallory (American Horror Story)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 45





	Different Demons, Same Devil

**Author's Note:**

> that scene in apocalypse where mallory time travels for the first time and wakes up and cordelia comforts her just. OOH. that really hit me right in the depression. so yeah. don't read if cutting/self-harm triggers you. that being said, it was extremely cathartic for me to write so maybe it'll be cathartic for you to read?

Mallory watched the tender skin of her arm stretch under the blade before pulling open, revealing thin lines of blood. It stung more than she’d planned, and she sucked in a breath, forcing herself to focus on the physical sensation of the blood trickling down her forearm. 

She brought the razor down again. And again. 

It grounded her. She didn’t have to think about how fucked up she was, what a freak she was. All she had to do was hurt. She deserved this. She had to.

After six slices across her arm, her haze was broken by a gentle knock on the door. “Mallory?”

Mallory recognized the voice as Cordelia’s. The head of Miss Robichaux's had been so kind to her these last few days, and Mallory was grateful for it. It had been a stressful week at the Academy for everyone, and Mallory, who hadn’t yet made anyone she’d call a friend, had spent most of it trailing behind Cordelia, hoping for a moment alone with her.

But not now. Not like this.

Cordelia knocked on the door again. “Mallory, are you in there? Zoe said you’ve been in here for half an hour now.”

_Half an hour?_ Truth be told, Mallory had no idea how long it had been since she’d left Zoe’s class to go to the bathroom. When she was in this space, everything fell away except the cool metal between her fingers and her own thoughts screaming at her. Now that she was outside of that world, the silence was deafening.

“I’ll be right out,” she called softly. Fuck, her arm hurt. Had it always hurt this bad?

“Okay.” Mallory waited, but the shadows of Cordelia’s feet under the door didn’t move. “Are you all right?”

“Oh, yes,” she said quickly. “Uh -- womanly issues.”

She heard Cordelia make a sympathetic noise behind the door and balled her fists shut at the sound, the tightening of muscle causing her cuts to weep. She didn’t deserve sympathy. She didn’t deserve anything. She was a monster, some kind of fucked up demonic _thing,_ and she was so fucking selfish, now she was mutilating herself in this pristine tiled bathroom and lying her ass off to a woman who had been nothing but kind to her and --

“Do you need anything? Tampons? Advil?”

Mallory’s head spun. “No, I’m all right -- ” she started, but her voice was too loud, too raw, it broke on the last word and turned into a sob. Mallory gasped in a breath, trying to get her body to be still and her mind to shut the _fuck_ up, but the room spun around her as she tipped off the toilet onto the floor.

She heard Cordelia gasp. “Mallory!” Dimly she watched the lock turn from the outside as Cordelia magically opened the door and saw Mallory crumpled on the floor. “Oh my God, Mallory!”

“I’m sorry!” she cried out, more on instinct than anything else. Cordelia was going to punish her for this, for being so stupid and selfish and careless about it on top of everything else. She squeezed her eyes shut as Cordelia entered the room and bent over her. It was too much. Her arm felt cold and sticky and damp where the blood ran from it -- and why was there _so much_ blood? -- and Cordelia was too close and there was some horrible sound that Mallory scarcely recognized as her own sobbing.

“It’s okay, honey. It’s okay. I’m here. Shh, shh, it’s okay. It’s me.” Cordelia reached out a hand for Mallory’s face, not touching yet, waiting to see if Mallory flinched away. She didn’t. She couldn’t move at all, not yet.

Mallory’s eyes opened and she felt Cordelia’s warm hand, with the two cold metal rings she always wore, cradle her face. Slowly Cordelia pulled her off the floor, leaning them both against the sink. She took in a shaky breath and tried to focus on Cordelia’s whispers in her ear.

They stayed like that for a moment, Mallory trying to quell the shaking in her body and Cordelia gently stroking her hair. Cordelia turned and pressed a kiss to Mallory’s head, catching sight of the wounds on her arm. She froze above Mallory. “Oh, honey…”

Mallory’s right hand flew to her arm to cover the wounds, and she drew her arm back. She opened her mouth to deny it, but there was nothing she could say.

“Did you just do that? Just now?”

Mallory swallowed hard and nodded.

“Okay.” Cordelia took Mallory’s right hand in hers, biting her lip when it came away bloody. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” She rose from the floor and wet a washcloth. Mallory immediately missed the older woman’s comforting touch, but Cordelia came back down soon enough, taking Mallory’s arm and cleaning her wounds.

“I’m sorry, Miss Cordelia.”

Cordelia shook her head. “Don’t worry about any of that right now.” She set the washcloth to the side and settled next to Mallory on the floor. “But can we talk about this a little?”

Mallory hesitated. Every time she had talked to someone about this she had been called cowardly, selfish, attention-seeking. But Cordelia had been patient so far. Cordelia had taken care of her. She gave a small nod.

Cordelia took her hand and placed their intertwined fingers on her lap. “Was this the first time you’ve done this?”

Mallory shook her head. 

“Was it the first time you’ve done this since you came here?”

Mallory nodded.

“Did something happen to trigger it?”

She shrugged. “Not specifically.” Her voice was throaty and wet. She made herself look Cordelia in the eyes, but the older woman looked so sad that Mallory couldn’t bear it, and she looked down again. Her wounds had slowed their bleeding, but Mallory had a feeling they would scar this time. She hadn’t had scars before. “Are you mad?”

Cordelia turned their hands over, rubbing Mallory’s thumb back and forth with her own. “No, sweetheart, why would I be mad?”

“Everyone’s been mad. When they find out.”

The small breath Cordelia let out at that admission was almost enough to make Mallory want to lunge up to the sink and grab the razor again. “No, Mallory, I’m not mad. I would never be angry about that.”

There was something deeper in her voice now, something sadder. Mallory could feel the waves of emotion coming off of the Supreme.

“Do you want to see something?” Cordelia asked after a moment.

“Okay.”

Cordelia took a deep breath and bent her knee up. Releasing Mallory’s hand, she rolled up the cuffs of her jeans to reveal a ladder of scars around her calf. Her fingers worried over the raised tissue.

Mallory’s eyes widened, but she said nothing.

“I don’t show a lot of the girls these, for obvious reasons. But I thought you might like to know. You’re not alone.”

 _You’re not alone._ The phrase echoed in Mallory’s head.

“Don’t…” Mallory could scarcely bring herself to ask the question. “Don’t all your scars and things go away when you become the Supreme?”

Cordelia smiled, but there was no warmth in it. Quietly she said, “That only applies to scars you have before you become Supreme.”

“Oh.” _Oh._

Cordelia put an arm around Mallory and helped them both up. They stood on the bathroom rug for a moment, Mallory leaning into Cordelia’s chest and taking a few breaths into her neck.

Cordelia slowly pulled away. Moving past Mallory, she picked up the razor blade Mallory had left on the sink, and through the mirror Mallory could see tears forming in her eyes. She pocketed the razor and turned to look at the younger witch. “You can always come to me. Always.”

Mallory nodded and embraced her again. _You’re a hugger,_ she remembered Cordelia saying, rather awkwardly, at their first meeting. But Cordelia held tightly onto Mallory and pressed another kiss to her head.

“Thank you, Cordelia.”

“Always,” she repeated.

**Author's Note:**

> hope you're all doing okay. drop a line if you've got things to say. love you all very much :)


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